1. Field of the Invention
The present general inventive concept relates to an image forming apparatus having a dust collecting part, and more particularly, to an image forming apparatus having an ink cartridge with a wide array type ink jet head that is capable of printing an entire lateral line of a recording medium at a time, and a device that removes impurities, such as ink mists, dust, or particles, from the image forming apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
An ink jet printer is a device for printing a desired image or text by ejecting ink stored in a cartridge onto a recording medium through an ejecting part, typically a nozzle of an ink jet head. Ink jet printers have been widely used due to their low cost and the ease with which color printing is implemented.
Referring to FIG. 1, a conventional type of ink jet printer is partially illustrated. In FIG. 1, a main body frame 10 is installed in a printer main body to support devices and install various parts. The main body frame 10 is provided with a guide bar 12 at its lower portion and an upper guide 14 at its upper portion. A carriage 20 is installed at the guide bar 12 and the upper guide 14. A slider 24 is formed at a top surface 22 of the carriage 20, and the slider 24 is mounted onto the upper guide 14. In addition, ink cartridges 26 and 28 are mounted in the carriage 20.
The carriage 20 laterally slides along the guide bar 12 and is driven by a driving part (not shown) above a surface of a recording medium P to perform a printing operation. In this process, ink ejected from an ink jet head of the ink cartridges 26 and 28 partially remains on a surface of the ink jet head and agglomerates there. The surface of the ink jet head becomes contaminated due to dust, particles, and ink mists introduced from the recording medium P or an exterior. As a result, a nozzle of the ink jet head may become blocked and printing quality may deteriorate. In addition, since the ink remaining on the ink jet head agglomerates and blocks the nozzle when the printing operation is not performed for an extended period of time, it becomes necessary to store the ink jet head in an enclosed state when the ink jet head is not in use. Therefore, a service station 30 is installed at one end of the main body frame 10 to perform these functions.
Recently, a printing speed of ink jet printers has been improved with the development of a wide array type ink jet head, because the wide array type ink jet head extends along an entire width of the recording medium and is capable of printing on a recording medium one entire lateral line at a time. Since one entire lateral line of the recording medium may be printed at a time without a reciprocating movement of the ink jet head, the printing speed may be improved. A structure of the printer may be simplified, because it is unnecessary to move an ink cartridge laterally to reach the entire width of the recording medium. In other words, by increasing the length of the ink jet head to correspond to the width of the recording medium, rather than laterally moving the conventional ink jet head along a lateral direction of the recording medium, the printing speed is improved.
However, in the wide array type ink jet head, since a region from which ink is ejected is significantly widened in comparison with the conventional type ink jet head, more impurities, such as ink mists, dust, particles, etc., are generated. In addition, although the impurities should be more thoroughly removed from the wide array type ink jet head due to an increased probability of contamination of the wide array type ink jet head, a wiping part is insufficient to remove the impurities, because wiping the wide array type ink jet head becomes more difficult than the conventional ink jet head.